Parade’s grand marshal embodies the spirit of 1775
For retired Navy Capt. Thomas G. Kelley, the 250th celebration recalls the courage early Americans had to stand up to tyranny.
It’s a bond that spans centuries.
For retired Navy Capt. Thomas G. Kelley, grand marshal of Acton’s Patriots Day parade, the 250th celebration recalls the courage early Americans had to stand up to tyranny despite the sacrifices demanded.
The Colonists were ordinary people, “farmers and tradesmen, probably living a good life, but they were willing to give it up for a cause greater than their own,” says Kelley.
He knows something about sacrifice.
As a 30-year-old lieutenant during the Vietnam War, Kelley was badly wounded while leading a June 1969 rescue mission in South Vietnam on the Ong Muong Canal in Kien Hoa Province, commanding eight river assault craft in evacuating a company of U.S. Army infantry troops.
Heroic leadership
When one of the armored troop carriers suffered a mechanical failure, Kelley ordered a protective column around the disabled craft and maneuvered his own boat to the exposed side of the column. His craft took a direct hit from an enemy rocket.
“The shell penetrating the thick armor plate and the explosion spraying shrapnel in all directions” severely wounded the lieutenant, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society website.
Despite his wounds — which ultimately resulted in the loss of an eye — Kelley continued to relay his commands through one of his men, and the boats moved to safety. For his leadership, he was awarded the Medal of Honor, later receiving the Legion of Merit three times and a Purple Heart.
Kelley recalls his heroism differently: “I was surrounded by some very, very dedicated men who had the same focus on the mission as I did, and we were able to accomplish it together. I received the Medal of Honor, but it was really a team effort for a whole bunch of people.”
His enduring service
The sense of shared sacrifice and dedication is one that Kelley continued to cultivate throughout his naval career and later in public service, as Massachusetts commissioner of the Department of Veterans Affairs, working closely with the U.S. Department of Labor to find jobs for returning service men and women.
Because so many young people join the armed services out of high school, “we wanted to make sure the playing field is level for them,” says Kelley, who wanted to ensure that veterans had the same opportunities as their peers who went to college right out of high school and had time to build contacts and careers.
For the past 10 years, Kelley, 85, and his wife, Joan, have helped host a breakfast for 50 homeless veterans once a month through their church in Boston. Recently, they learned about a monthly breakfast for veterans in their hometown of Somerville, hosted at Somerville High School, and they are hoping to participate in that.
Kelley says the request to lead the parade came from his good friend and “Acton mainstay” Robert Hallinan, who is director of Personnel and Manpower in the Office of the Adjutant General in the Massachusetts National Guard.
“He called me and asked me if I would do it, and I said yes,” Kelley says. “I think about how brave those Colonists were. They were a pretty gutsy group of people.”
